this is actually not that easy to dismiss; weird things behave as animate nouns like chess pieces, dead people and national folk dances. anyway I found the answer myself, and it appears that it wasn't something I misremembered hearing. Mushrooms can behave as animate nouns in Russian, but it is kind of colloquial, and used by people who are more into mushroom picking (or perhaps more like fungi...). in Polish apparently they are strictly animate. so that's kind of cool!

A normal Russian speaker, unfamiliar with the topic, would consider it a mistake.

However, since in fairy tales even stones can speak, Russian definitely does support such usage as a means of personifying an object. It is just that if you talk like that about mushrooms, computers or wardrobes in a more common environment, a listener is unlikely to fully comprehend what's your exact point.

By the way, it also applies to berries (e.g., клубника, черника, ежевика, брусника, смородина, вишня, черешня, малина, виноград). When it comes to grains, Russian and English finally align: "rice", "wheat", "rye" and "barley" are uncountable in both languages.